Tag: bicycle safety

PSD flunks on bikes and does so in spectacularly bad fashion. The Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation’s Public Safety Department takes a hands-off policy toward dangers caused by reckless biking.

With bikes cruising sidewalks, running stop signs and generally acting as if no traffic rules apply. PSD officers watch and do nothing.

PSD‘s failure to deal with bikes creating safety hazards by ignoring all traffic rules is not official. But it’s actual, and it’s blatant. Managers at RIOC are aware of what they should be doing as well as what they are not.

One month ago, on July 9th, a RIOC official released this statement: “PSD is also going to be keeping a closer eye on vehicles that run stop signs as we know it has become a concern on the island. “

Riding along as an email attachment was a flyer (see attached) telling all local businesses that traffic laws would be “strictly enforced.” But with logic that passeth understanding, PSD would not do so until September 1st.

Time to test PSD resolve on bike safety

Firmly inside September, I took a walk on Main Street with an eye on bikers’ behavior. Here’s what I saw first, after just a few minutes:

A eBike rider spins through a River Road stop sign, then continues on past another before turning onto the helix, no sign of even a pause.

This guy had not gotten the word about strict enforcement, and PSD’s laissez faire enforcement moved him along.

What I saw, seconds later, was worse.

This rider, apparently carrying a food delivery in a plastic bag, ran the stop sign coming down off the helix, and headed north on Main Street.

The next violation came so quickly, I didn’t have time to reset to video from still, but as this sequence shows, the hazard was obvious and immediate.

Watching a delivery bike rider race down Main Street, on the wrong side of the road, after nearly hitting them in the crosswalk at Gristedes.

As I turned to shoot a second still, he nearly hit two people in the crosswalk and kept going as they watched in shock.

PSD’s big fail on bike safety

As luck had it, I ran into acting PSD chief Kevin Brown, a few minutes later, outside 591 Main Street.

I told him I’d just been watching bikers violating traffic laws and documenting them.

“What happened to the crack down?” I asked.

Was it staged?

Like magic, an eBike rider suddenly appeared, advancing our way toward the stop sign in front of us.

“Watch this,” I said. “He won’t stop.”

It was a low risk prediction. They never stop.

Sure enough, this guy coasted straight through the stop sign and crosswalk and with a twist. He was talking on his cellphone at the time. It was a double violation, and he could not have been watching for pedestrians, wheelchairs or anything else.

Discouraging conversation follows…

Acting chief Brown reacted. “You can see that on any intersection Manhattan,” he said.

True, but this isn’t Midtown. It’s my hometown, it shouldn’t happen here, I told him. And it sounded too much like surrender, giving in to the constant two-wheeler abuse threatening to turn Manhattan into Naples.

In case you haven’t visited the Italian city, I confirm that its reputation for having traffic laws that are no more than advisory is accurate. And that’s what we have here with bikes.

Brown objected, saying that violations don’t happen when his officers are nearby. I believe he honestly thinks that’s true, but it isn’t.

I took it as a challenge. When he brushed off my story about talking to three of his officers, the day before, and hearing that none of them admitted knowing anything about an eBike crackdown, I decided to test myself.

But about the day before…

My belief that PSD flunks on bikes was reinforced when I watched an officer fail to blink an eye when one of the most notorious violators whizzed by.

He was the first to disavow knowledge about a crackdown. Then, two bicyclists tripped happily through the crosswalk right in front of us. No problem, not from PSD anyway.

Next, I talked to two other nearby officers. They didn’t know anything about cracking down on traffic violations either.

But “we try to look out for riding on the sidewalk,” one reported.

Just a little while later, I saw this:

A woman rides without concerns down the sidewalk in front of Westview, Amalgamated Bank, China One and the liquor store when customers could pop out at any minute.

Recording how PSD flunks on bikes and safety on video

About a half-hour after my conversation with Brown, I leaned against the wall in Good Shepherd Plaza with my video camera ready. What follows are recordings of the first pair of two-wheelers to hit the crosswalk.

I’m reluctant to single out individual officers because, in reality, they all do this. What I recorded was no exception. It just happened to be convenient.

Bike rider number 2 does the same.

At a RIOC board meeting later that day, I showed acting chief Brown the videos. In fairness, I asked him if he would like to make a statement.

No, he told me. RIOC’s official spokesperson would.

I waited five days. Never heard a word.

Conclusions

Anyone can walk down Main Street and see bike riders running stop signs, ignoring pedestrians in crosswalks and going the wrong way on one-way streets. Except for parking my butt for five minutes in Good Shepherd Plaza, I made no plans at all. In every instance, I was on my way to something else when the violations came tumbling out.

Bike riders are not aware that they are breaking laws and endangering the safety of others because PSD’s overt passivity virtually waives the laws.

In one case, I confronted an eBiker riding on the sidewalk in Southtown. A very busy local deliveryman, he reacted with sincere puzzlement. He really didn’t think he was doing anything wrong because…

PSD flunks on bikes, and they do so in spectacular fashion.

Such abysmal failure to enforce or even influence safety seems perplexingly difficult to mismanage, but it’s right there for anyone to observe.

Someone, a pedestrian, a bike rider without a helmet, is going to get hurt because of RIOC’s negligence.

Residents and visitors need to watch out for themselves. PSD is not going to help you. It’s a two-wheeler free-for-all on Roosevelt Island.

Roosevelt Island bike chaos thumbed its nose at PSD‘s announced crackdown on traffic safety violations. High risk, reckless riding continues unchanged, and it happens right in front of active duty officers.